As Advertisers Revolt, Facebook Commits To Flagging 'Newsworthy' Political Speech That Violates Policy (techcrunch.com) 58
As advertisers pull away from Facebook to protest the social networking giant's hands-off approach to misinformation and hate speech, the company is instituting a number of stronger policies to woo them back. From a report: In a livestreamed segment of the company's weekly all-hands meeting, CEO Mark Zuckerberg recapped some of the steps Facebook is already taking, and announced new measures to fight voter suppression and misinformation -- although they amount to things that other social media platforms like Twitter have already enacted and enforced in more aggressive ways.
At the heart of the policy changes is an admission that the company will continue to allow politicians and public figures to disseminate hate speech that does, in fact, violate the Facebook's own guidelines -- but it will add a label to denote they're remaining on the platform because of their "newsworthy" nature. It's a watered down version of the more muscular stance that Twitter has taken to limit the ability of its network to amplify hate speech or statements that incite violence. [...] Zuckerberg's remarks came days of advertisers -- most recently Unilever and Verizon -- announced that they're going to pull their money from Facebook as part the #StopHateforProfit campaign organized by civil rights groups.
At the heart of the policy changes is an admission that the company will continue to allow politicians and public figures to disseminate hate speech that does, in fact, violate the Facebook's own guidelines -- but it will add a label to denote they're remaining on the platform because of their "newsworthy" nature. It's a watered down version of the more muscular stance that Twitter has taken to limit the ability of its network to amplify hate speech or statements that incite violence. [...] Zuckerberg's remarks came days of advertisers -- most recently Unilever and Verizon -- announced that they're going to pull their money from Facebook as part the #StopHateforProfit campaign organized by civil rights groups.
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It's always an excuse (Score:3, Insightful)
Reddit, which once quarantined r/the_donald for "threats against police" back when some users had suggested protecting Republican lawmakers who were being threatened with an arrest for refusing to vote on a cap-and-trade bill, currently has a post titled ACAB that's a repost of another post saying "Take his pension and his manhood" for an 8 second video of the police tasering someone. The "front page" is a bit fuzzy due to infinite scroll, but it's not very far down the page right now. Maybe that cop real
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Heard about the Donald Trump Official Backyard Gas Barbecue?
It seats 20.
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Trump decides this, not the media, by the way he behaves. It is a logical consequence of his behaviour. Those that don't want to understand that, belong in the same camp that should be ostracized.
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Does it matter? Facebook is being forced to change. It's not enough, but it's an improvement.
How is bowing the knee to the mob an improvement, unless you're one of the mob?
Re:Does Unilever really care? (Score:4, Insightful)
Unilever is Facebook's customer, and we're Unilever's customers.
One way or another, Facebook is listening to customers. So, address the point. Businesses are generally supposed to respond to the needs of their customers. Yes, or no?
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That's an interesting label to apply to Unilever and the Coca-Cola corporation. Oh, right... corporations are brilliant until they do something that doesn't agree with your politics, then they're suddenly powerless puppets controllable by shadowy fringe groups.
You can't have it both ways.
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Ooo, I see a get out-of-following-laws-free card.
All those laws are just demands to take a knee to the mob, so how is following them an improvement?
ANARCHY! WOOOO!
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That's how society works. If you consider society to be a mob... Well there aren't many places without a society, maybe if you set yourself up as a Somalian warlord?
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They don't have to care directly. If their potential customers care, then it's in Unilever's interest to care too - or at least to fake caring, which is close enough for some purposes.
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Unilever is a giant multinational food conglomerate. They should be immune to politics. It's a little concerning that they are throwing themselves into the fray. Why would they need to affect the election? It's either personal agenda of their elitist leadership, which is concerning. Or the outcome of the election will significantly affect their profits, which is equally concerning.
A company that makes bouillon cubes to sell around the world should not get involved in politics. This is a big red flag.
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.... Or the outcome of the election will significantly affect their profits, which is equally concerning.
A company that makes bouillon cubes to sell around the world should not get involved in politics. This is a big red flag.
This is not a political involvement, it's market share retention (or even growth).
When enough consumers begin boycotting advertisers due perceived bias on the part of any media outlet, those advertisers need to react. Two choices: the company takes a supportive stand and continues to advertise (aka the moral high ground), or, they try to get ahead of the curve by threatening to pull (or pulling) their ads before the boycott campaign gains legs and cuts into the bottom line.
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Re:Does Unilever really care? (Score:4, Interesting)
Politics makes laws, taxes, and regulations and business entities care a lot about all those things. That's why they spend vast amounts of money lobbying elected and appointed officials. As a point of fact lobbying by business pays off big time and is a good investment. Just look at "right to repair" legislation or tax policy. [phys.org]
When you say that big business should "immune to politics" do you mean that they should stop their lobbying efforts? Hell will freeze over before that happens.
Politics and public relations overlap, and corporations must respond to both of them. Right now the US is going through convulsions over the politics of race and corporate entities cannot close their eyes and cover their ears and scream "La-la-la not my problem." Although corporations want to avoid "corporate responsibility " in every way possible, sometimes they have to take a stand. Now is one of those times.
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Politics makes laws, taxes, and regulations and business entities care a lot about all those things. That's why they spend vast amounts of money lobbying elected and appointed officials. As a point of fact lobbying by business pays off big time and is a good investment.
Doesn't that actually make this a cautionary tale? Cui Bono? Lets try to make a logical train based on these assumptions:
If Unilever wants to force Facebook's hand to further wade into politics by moderating content, do we assume FaceBook will be neutral or do both FB and Unilever "know" (or at least assume) what the outcome will be? And if the corporation that wants to use its market power pressure to force changes in behavior is by your logic doing this to protect its profits, ergo letting FaceBook remain
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Since big corporations own politics in the US it's a good thing that public opinion still holds some sway over them. It's a bit indirect and not very scientific but at least corporations aren't entirely capable of controlling how you think and feel yet.
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Unilever cares above all about its good name . Facebook is losing its good name therefore Unilever says 'we don't care how you do it but fix your good name otherwise we won't advertise on your place'. So where does facebook get its bad name from ? From preying on the personal data of its customers. Only that is its business model so that can't be fixed. What it can do is to ride the censorship wave , claim its bad name is related to 'a hands off approach to really evil user posts' and enforce more censorshi
Unilever (Score:5, Interesting)
That's not small potatoes with Unilever pulling out for the rest of the year. Unilever is a massive conglomeration. Facebook loosing Unilever is tectonic in magnitude. Just checked, Facebook is down 8% today. People can feel however they want to feel about Facebook or Twitters method of flagging hate speech or lack thereof, but money walks and Unilever pulling out is absolutely going to do more on rapidly changing those policies.
Now all the other ramifications of a big company's dollar affecting change faster than (insert your preferred method for change here), I leave that to all the other threads to debate. But we all know that much money walking out your door will get anyone moving on whatever plans are in the "planning phase".
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It's just corporate cabal bullshit. The corporate cabal is just providing Facebook with the excuse for mass censorship so too many people do not leave and can continue to be manipulated by corporations, and the ability of the people to communicate with each other will of course be monitored and censored. Just drop Facebook the censorship and manipulation will continue to increase, even adding in AI friends who will tell you want kind of arsehole you are if you do not love your corporate masters.
Stick with F
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Not a Good Place to Promote Brand Image Too. (Score:3, Interesting)
Having a loyal audience, beholden to a corporation's whims has been quite profitable for many news organizations. When they can find (or create) someone's pain, and then convince them they have the only solution that will make that person feel better, they will keep that person coming back for more. It's basic sales training. It's amazing what you can make a person purchase or believe. We are social creatures! We are easy to take advantage of if done correctly. It seems Facebook is trying to follow this path. Only problem is, they are playing all sides -- and they bring those sides close together. It's the digital equivalent of having two opposing groups demonstrating at the same time and place. Nothing good comes of that. An advertiser may shrug off the issues advertising on a news site since all the viewers are like-minded. Facebook's playing with fire and is now getting singed!
If i was an advertiser, that's exactly the medium I wouldn't want my brand to be associated with. Think of this, when someone logs into Facebook and sees a post that counters their own self-image, it's painful to them. Why would I want my brand to be in any way associated with that?
Thoughts?
Amazing! (Score:2)
The left and their standards (Score:1, Troll)
Wow, if you do what they want and dog on trump, you get the stamp of approval. Even if you've done that consistently, if you "slip up" and don't toe the line enough, you're an "uncle Tom" and the subject of mob ridicule.
Facebook absolutely sucks, in general, but I can't help but get a chuckle out of the mental gymnastics the left goes through to push the "no orange man" agenda.
Wake me up when it's over.
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"Mental gymnastics"? The guy is a piece of garbage. People who support him are also garbage. No gymnastics needed.
The mental gymnastics they're going through involve denouncing things like the principle of freedom of speech, or non-violent protest using civil disobedience. I heard a BLM protestor effectively call MLK "stupid" for supporting only non-violent protests, "because he died anyway", as if merely living is enough.
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The guy is a piece of garbage. People who support him are also garbage.
In 14 words you manage to prove exactly why some people support him. Really some of you Orange-Man-Bad folks need to crack open that freshman year psychology book or any recent human behavior studies like "Perfectly Irrational" or the economic behavior studies from Kahnemmen and Talib. Once you start calling everyone garbage (signaling your contempt) you pretty much lose any ability to persuade. Call it sunk-cost or whatever you will about those idiot "garbage" people but I bet they have their own equally u
Re: The left and their standards (Score:2)
Basically, they call him stupid and garbage and unworthy of life. Exactly the same way he feels about them.
Back here in the real world, I'll bet Hillary lost a fuck ton of votes with that "basket of deplorables" lone and Obama woke them up to it with his "bitterly clinging to guns and God" line years earlier. He awoke a sleeping giant. Had he and Hillary and the like not been so openly arrog
Re: The left and their standards (Score:3)
The problem is they're walking themselves right into a civil war. They've been stoking the anger and outrage of their useful idiots for years now, while at the same time locking them into an echo-chamber so that they believe that Trump can't possibly win the next election. So what happens if he does win? A huge segment of the left is going to assume the election was rigged, and they'll be pissed enough to start riots which make the current shit look like a family picnic in comparison. Sooner or later ei
Re: The left and their standards (Score:2)
I will be surprised if there isn't serious violence after the election no matter what happens.
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Wow, if you do what they want and dog on trump, you get the stamp of approval. Even if you've done that consistently, if you "slip up" and don't toe the line enough, you're an "uncle Tom" and the subject of mob ridicule.
The problem is not the subject of posts but rather the information itself. If the information is false then it is harmful as it's been proven that a lot of people cannot tell fact from fiction. Having torrents of conflicting information can make it difficult to discern what is reality without having prior knowledge of the situation. The current US President's involvement is coincidental not fundamental and frankly it's difficult to believe you unwittingly conflated the two.
Re: The left and their standards (Score:3, Insightful)
Smh
Nice try, Lizard Person. (Score:1)
Double standards, yay! (Score:2)
Money (Score:2)
Money talks, bullshit walks.
Unfortunately (Score:4, Insightful)
AGW: Using an acronym and a long word (anthropomorphic) to make it look like there is complexity and debate about the fact that we are shitting where we eat. Some creatures will likely benefit but it won't be us, we are making parts of the planet to hot for humans.
What trump said: most of his tweets are nutjobbery but he tweets both sides of most issues so you can either mock his inconsistency or seize on the minority of stuff he got right. Guess what Fox/OAN do.
Virtue signaling: not making the world burn. If you do anything good you're not being a greedy horrible person so you must be a hypocrite. Only a valid argument for the 0.1% or the very gullible.
Snowflake: a term used in context to mock conservatives that they are using against their opponents using the Rove/Goebbels principle that you accuse others of what you are.
Triggered: we can't win the argument logically so if we can piss off our opponents by obtuseness we still win by default.
Cuck: We have totally lost the argument but we can resort to random name calling.
Fair and balanced: if you take us to court it is "for entertainment purposes only"
Fox news: no longer a news channel. Reclassified in 2018.
Inequality: to quote Russell Brand "when I was poor and I criticized inequality they said I was jealous. Once I was rich and said the same thing they said I was a hypocrite." They just don't like the message. Them and the 0.1%.
Government regulation: Fox news hates it. The most powerful force for positive action that we have, and they hate it. Acid rain is gone because of regulation, lead in gasoline likewise. The American government has been neutered by conservatism for the last 4 decades but there are still positive effects.
Re: Unfortunately (Score:1)
Racist
Do better
Black lives matter
Defend the police
Silence = violence
Deplorable
Bitter clinger
White supremacist
Black
African American
Jamaican
African
Re: Unfortunately (Score:1)
Problem is the money is for the propaganda so you get Fox News (fair and balanced, but in court our argument is "it's opinion and no one would really believe it")
Never happened. What you're thinking of is Alex Jones who has been sued many times and once famously used the defense that he was "playing a character" and that no reasonable person would believe some of the things he says. While Alex Jones does seem to largely have a right-wing following these days, he had previously been quite popular amongst largely left-wing 9/11 conspiracy theorists during the Bush administration.
The fact that you're confusing Fox News and Alex Jones doesn't surprise me in the least;
Fairly quick response (Score:3)
They already do a good job of suppressing (Score:2)
Votes in Hong Kong.
Fuck you zuck
Marxist propaganda (Score:3)
Facebook and Twitter are Marxist propaganda outlets. I only make posts there that I hope will worsen the atmosphere and make them less attractive to advertisers. I want big brands to feel uncomfortable about placing adverts with these companies.
Discrimination (Score:2)
Facebook should treat all gooses and ganders the same. The fact that one is a "politician" should not be justification for acting with impunity. This is exactly the same thing we have seen with the Police who believe that they are impervious to the law that applies to everyone else and can do whatever the fuck they please with impunity and immunity.
It is time for Police to *suffer* the consequences of their actions and quite time for politicans and shills to be held accountable in the same fashion as ever
Marx apparently was a centrist (Score:1)